Fever Dreams
by nothinbuttherain
Summary: Brutasha oneshot based on the prompt: 'I thought you were dead' Extended/alternate farmhouse scene, obvious AOU spoilers, probing into what Wanda might have forced Bruce to see that led to the incident with Hulk in Johannesburg that spills out when Natasha confronts him about it afterwards. Mixed perspective between Nat and Bruce.


**Fever Dreams**

He hears the bathroom door open behind him, sees her reflection faint in the glass of the window he's been looking out of without really seeing anything beyond since she left him. The view had been nice, peaceful, a wide spread of seemingly endless landscape that seems to cover the world but his vision had blurred and his mind wandered back to darker things before long.

Now she provides the only distraction that could have urged him away from drowning in stolen snatches of memory from what had happened, something that he sorely needed.

She looks beautiful like this; like her. She's shrugged back into the fluffy bathrobe and is still towelling her hair dry, her curls red and dripping hang loosely around her face, framing it.

He watches her, captivated, and is struck for a moment by the thought that he was mad before; mad to hesitate, made to stop, mad to think, mad not to kiss her, to not still be kissing her even now. He should have done what she'd told him she'd intended, he should have joined her in her shower and held her in his arms against him, kept her warm, kept her close to him and never let her go.

The impulse passes almost as quickly as it had come to him. She has that effect on him, that way that when she looks at him he can believe that she sees something that the rest of the world doesn't. He believes that she sees her as he is, as he wants to be seen, as he longs to be seen, as he is, deep down beneath the layers of doubt and secrets and lies he's shrouded himself in to keep others safe, he can believe that she sees past all of that.

He can believe that she still sees him, she sees him and cares for him, all of him; and she could love all of him, she could want to be with all of him. And it thrills and terrifies him all at once and stirs something in him that he never thought, that he never even let himself consider the possibility that he might have again, that he never dared to dream that he _could_ have again but she makes him think, even for a moment that he might.

But it never lasts; the warm, inviting dream she draws from him fades into the cold bleak reality and he drops his gaze, resignation settling over him like a shroud, silencing his fleeting wonders about a future with her.

Because he remembers. He always remembers. Remembers what he is. Remembers what he's done.

The sudden awareness that had hit him, crashing into him relentless and forceful as a furious tide in a storm, that had been the worst thing. Standing there; a monster all over again, surrounded by the destruction he had wreaked, the terror he had inspired, the evidence of the darker side of him that no-one should ever be bound to or put at risk of waking.

The code words, the holding back, the lullabies, the precautions, the control he thought he'd had suddenly seemingly laughable. Paper chains and hollow, wooden shields that, when faced with the Hulk, had been ripped and torn and shattered to fragments, along with their blind delusions that he could be safe, that he could be tamed, that he could ever be anything like a hero.

They had all managed to kid themselves; they had all managed to kid _him_ that he could control it, that he could actually help, that he could be an Avenger, that he could ever be more than what he'd become; and what he'd become was a monster.

Somehow he'd forgotten. Somehow he'd managed to close his eyes and his ears to the truth. Somehow he'd managed to believe, to really believe, that something like this wasn't just waiting to happen. He was a disaster, a terror, a horror, the stuff of nightmares and dark tales with no happy ending trapped inside human skin that would rip and tear and break like tissue. That was what he was, but he had tried to live in something else, in some fantasy, some temporary oasis and think he was alright now.

How many people had paid for that mistake? How many had borne the burden of him being soothed by that false hope, that lying comfort? How many lives had been ruined to teach him something that he knew already?

He knew what he was, he knew what he could do, what he was capable of, he knew that he was dangerous. He had let himself forget; no, he had allowed himself to become convinced to dream of a sweet lie rather than suffer to live with the bitter truth.

He would never, _could_ never let that happen again, not when the cost might be even dearer than it had been, not when the cost might be...

He trembles and lowers his eyes from her reflection, unable to bear it any longer.

Whatever she might say of monsters, her own lurked in the dark cast of her eyes, in shadows and memories and nightmares. Fierce and cruel and corrosive, they had shaped her as surely as Hulk had shaped him, they hurt her still too, he knew, and they had hurt others in the past but she had mastered her demons, she had tamed the beast she had been. His own stirred beneath the surface with a mind of its own and with no interest in being bound by the paper chains that he had tried to use to control it.

He had no control over it.

It would never be only a dark stain upon his past but would forever be a black shadow dogging every step, a cruel shade to hang over any future he might have thought of, even with her. Even if she understands, even if she feels safe, even if she trusts him, after today, he could never be sure, never be sure that she wasn't at risk. And he's seen what that looks like. Felt what it would be for that to happen and he knows it's not something he can ever handle again.

He closes his eyes, sickened by the thought, taunted and tempted still by the pointless dream she might have been, wanting to try, wanting to lose himself in that for as long as he could, wanting to stop over thinking and to just say yes, to make her happy, while he could...

But he was too terrified of how it all might end and the last thing he wants is for her to get hurt just so he can learn his lesson again. It's not worth that. _He's_ not worth that. Whatever this could be, whatever he wants, he cares about her too much to gamble when the risk is this great and the stakes are so high.

Her skin still feels a little damp beneath her robe but at least now she feels clean and clearer than she had before, as though the cool water had washed away the visions forced into her head and the terror that burned in her again.

She had seen at a glance that same still could not be said for him. He still looked raw and drawn and she's sure he's still re-living the snatches of stolen images he can remember and the footage from the news coverage none of them had thought to turn off soon enough to spare him that sight and the harsh sting of the reporter's words about him and what he'd done.

She knows what happened torments him, that he blames himself for every scream, every shattered window, every broken brick, she knows this will haunt him for weeks, _months_ , and longer in dreams. She knows he feels everything he did as Hulk a hundred times more sharply now than he would have at the time. She knows he's in pain. She knows that pain too, she knows how destructive it can be and how almost every attempt to soothe it only makes it worse.

But she also knows that she has to try. She can already feel him slipping away from her, retreating behind well-practiced walls barbed and staked and designed more for her protection than his own.

He has a tendency to withdraw whenever the Hulk makes an appearance, almost as though he's afraid of catching a flicker of fear in their eyes when they look at him. He's gotten better since they started working on the lullaby and fighting together but he's still not completely comfortable.

She gives him his space and his time to cool down and settle into his skin again then makes her, soon habitual, efforts to draw him out and engage him before he can slip too far from her.

She's worried that this time she may have lost him; that when she goes to him he'll shut her out, he'll look at her and his eye won't be his own; they'll be dead and cold and hollow, yet still not have room to let her in.

He reminds her now of how he was with her after the battle of New York, after the incident between them on the Helicarrier. They had rarely been alone with each other when they had come to work together again afterwards, on a mission a world away, contrived by Fury, she had no doubt.

Bruce had made as great an effort of spending as little time around her as Fury had arranging it in the first place however. He had avoided her eyes as he was doing now. In the end she had gone to him herself and sat him down to properly talk through and resolve what had happened between them.

After that, they had found each other to be very pleasant company. He had welcomed her in the lab where he spent most of his days and his conversation was far more stimulating than the meagre crew they had brought with them.

When they had parted they had parted with a deeper connection between them and an understanding that had intrigued her for some time afterwards, all while having become quite fond of each other in the intervening time they'd spent together.

She had made a point of noting thanks to Fury for that particular assignment. Since then, she couldn't remember Bruce ever having felt as distant with her as he did now. She has even less intention of letting that stand here than she had in that empty little base at the edge of the world.

He hears her padding quietly towards him from behind. Her steps are soft and muffled, absorbed by the thick carpet between them and the natural stealth born of her intensive training, but they're audible nonetheless, deliberately so, he thinks.

She's waiting for him to react to her approach, to turn and face her, but he doesn't, just as deliberately. He can't. He's too afraid of what he might see, what might be there that he doesn't want to see.

He's too tense, he knows that. Every muscle in his body seems to be twisted and knotted in a taut coil to the point where it might have been painful had he not become so numb so long.

She'll see the tension in him, he knows, she'll feel it, and his discomfort, his guilt. She knows him too well not to notice and he knows her too well to nurture any sort of false belief that she might choose to pretend otherwise.

She's close now. He can feel her; hear her soft breathing behind him in the quiet.

He considers drawing away, leaving the room, making some excuse and taking himself away somewhere, disappearing for a few hours, giving her some peace to get some rest alone without his intrusion.

He never really gives that any serious thought, if she wanted to be on her own she would say so and, surprisingly, he realises a moment later that the idea of being alone with nothing but his thoughts right now isn't as appealing as he'd thought on first blush. A moment later her hand gives his shoulder a gentle, testing squeeze.

He knows what she wants, he knows what she expects to result from the contact but he disappoints her, lowering his eyes avoiding hers still further and shifting away a little. His hands clench around the lip of the windowsill in front of him while hers slips away.

She blinks in surprise at his reaction and falters for a moment before she recovers herself. Taking another step forwards she places a hand on his arm.

"Bruce." She murmurs softly, now moving in as close to him as she can without letting their bodies touch.

He's trembling slightly now, she can feel it vibrating through him beneath her hand. Her voice is low and quiet when she speaks again, an invitation, a wish, not a command, "Bruce. Look at me."

He does.

And she sees fear in his eyes, the kind she's only seen there once before, so long ago, on the Helicarrier in the instant where he'd teetered on the edge, when he'd been balanced on the sharp edge of a knife's blade between Banner and Hulk, knowing he was lost, knowing he was out of control and that had terrified him just as much as it had terrified her at the time.

She sees that in him again now. The fear, the terror of the loss of control he feels now. Only this time, she's not scared of him, of any part of him, she knows him too well for that, they've been through too much together, she trusts him too much to ever reach that stage again, whatever happens.

She holds his gaze and she sees something soften slightly in him. She understands. When he'd looked at her, looked into her eyes, he had expected to find that fear again, he had expected judgement, he had expected something bordering on hate; the reflection of the feelings of the rest of the world to be echoed in her; he had expected her to look at him and see only the monster.

But she hadn't; she couldn't, not any more.

"Listen to me, Bruce." She murmurs, quiet but firm. His eyes flicker from her but she lays a hand on his cheek and goes on before he has the chance to interrupt or change his mind, "It wasn't your fault."

He shakes his head, a noise of disbelief choked out from the back of his throat and she knows she should have done this sooner, should have gone to him about this, straightened it out with him.

She moves in decisively against him until their bodies touch this time. He allows the contact, seems to welcome it. She's almost sure she can feel his heart pounding between them.

Her hand searches around their waists until it finds his and then she holds it tight, not letting him withdraw from her again, at least not until he's heard her out.

"She got inside your head." She begins slowly.

"She got inside everyone's head, they-" He interrupts, his voice brittle.

She squeezes his hand a little harder, "Couldn't control it either." She breaks in firmly, "She made you see things, she made you see horrible, terrible things, you didn't know you were, what was happening. You were scared, you weren't in control, no-one could have been under those circumstances. Don't let it undo everything that we've done together. You can't blame yourself for what happened." She breathes urgently, knowing that he does, knowing that it's tearing him apart.

He stares at her for a long moment, absently squeezing her hand and feeling her respond and return the gesture, seeking to soothe, to reassure him. She knows what this is doing to him, knows better than anyone. She's been there. She's been _here._ She's felt this.

He knows her words aren't empty, knows that there's truth in them or she wouldn't have said them. They don't lie to each other. They won't. They've lied enough to themselves in the past to hate the taste. He trusts her. He trusts her with everything he has; with everything he is. And he wants to believe her. God he'd give anything to just accept this, accept this way out she's giving him.

But he can't. He can't because it's a story that's all too easy to believe without the extenuating circumstances. It's a nightmare he's had, he's _lived_ through before, and it'd be all too easy to have it again. He can't forget, he can't just brush it off. He can't just shed his guilt. It's too much this time.

"So I bear no responsibility for what happened? For what Hulk did?" He demands, trying and failing to keep the bitter crack from intruding on his words. "For what _I_ did?" He corrects, his body trembling, "For what I've done."

He pulls away, suddenly unable to bear her touch, to bear associating her with what he says next, to bear tainting her with the destructive poison he can feel burning through his veins, "I've hurt people, Natasha. I've destroyed their homes, their _lives,_ I've killed-"

He breaks off, overcome, unable to say it, for her to hear it all, even know, when she's seen it firsthand. He can't bring himself to look at her now. He had, while he had spoken, while he had confessed his sins for her to hear, to understand. He had looked for horror, for repulsion, for rejection.

He hadn't seen it.

At the time he hadn't known what he was seeing but when she responds to him a hesitant moment later, he understands, that it was empathy.

"So have I." She breathes shakily.

She doesn't want his sympathy or his pity; though that's rarely been a danger with him. The ghosts that haunt their pasts are too similar, the demons she's been twisted with in dark shadows are too familiar to him to inspire pity.

Pity is the last response when there's nothing else left to offer; pity comes from those who don't know, from those that _can't_ know. But never from him. He knows her far too well. So does she. And she tells him.

"I've hurt people. I've destroyed people's lives, I've...I've killed."

He glances up at her again, her eyes dark and hooded full of grief for the life she had lead and the life that was stolen from her.

This time, he reaches out to her. His fingers brush lightly against hers and he feels her hand open out form the fist it had curled in to. H twines their fingers together and waits until she meets his eyes again before he shakes his head and says softly, "You've been hurt, you've been destroyed...You didn't have any choice in what they did to you, in what they made you do."

She opens her mouth to argue back but he gives her hand another little squeeze and goes on, his voice still quiet and low, his eyes holding hers and refusing to let go, wanting her to look straight into him, into his soul, it so often feels, and know he's telling her the truth, know that he believes what he says to her next, "And you came back." He tells her softly, brushing a loose, damp strand of hair behind her ear, feeling her shiver slightly at the contact, her hand curling around his when it lingers a moment on her cheek, "You fought." He breathes, "You've fought and you sacrificed and you save so many." He pauses a moment, a sad smile on his lips, his thumb lightly stroking her cheek as he says, "You're a hero in everyone's eyes but your own."

She gazes up at him, her lips slightly parted, gratitude and sadness welling up in her in equal measure before she all but whispers, "So are you."

He lowers his eyes a moment too late and she catches the light die in them.

"No." He replies his voice curiously flat, drawing away from her, whatever connection had been flaring and pulsing between them suddenly broken all at once.

He continues talking, his body turned away from her, his voice low and surprisingly steady but still oddly empty, "No that's...That's what I wanted to be, what I tried to be- What I am..." He shakes his head, a faint tremble creeping into his next words, "No, I'm a lot of things Natasha...but I'm not a hero."

She steps in a little closer to him, tentatively at first then more decisively when he responds positively to her approach, "I think you're being hard on yourself." She tells him firmly, "You're a good man, Bruce." She murmurs, planting herself almost defiantly in front of him and reaching up, gently touching his cheek with the tips of her fingers, "That's what you are." She insists, her eyes flashing dangerously, daring him to deny it, to try and tell her that she's wrong, that he's not, so she can make a final stand on the matter.

"And I trust you." She breathes, "I trust you, Bruce."

Something cold and dark shivers through him without warning at her words, as though the sun had stolen away leaving his soul in a sudden black, frozen shadow of something much crueller and harsher that chills him to the core.

The certainty in her eyes that should have been reassuring turns inward and sickens him as the memory of what he'd seen, what her certainty, what her trust, what her faith in him had been rewarded with in the twisted nightmares that dance too close to the surface of reality for him to ever forget or feel completely safe from.

The warmth in her tender touch, in her proximity, that should have brought him comfort and stability burns and irrationally panics him. He can feel himself slipping again, can feel the fear come lapping in against him, inexorable as a tide, eroding away his composure bit by bit by bit.

He remembers. He remembers it too well. He remembers the fever dream, the poisoned nightmare that had slipped into his mind like toxic fumes breathed deep down into his lungs, unseen, unnoticed, staining his insides, blackening and burning and only realised when it was too late. He remembers waking and waking to find himself in it, still trapped and tormented by the cruel and twisted irony that when faced with his worst fear, his only possible response had been to make it a reality.

He's shaking now, his whole body wracked by fear and panic and something else that's harder to place. She moves forwards instinctively, wanting to soothe him, wanting to calm him, to settle the situation before it escalates any further. But for every slow step she takes towards him he seems to take three back from her. She doesn't know what happened, what she said, what's triggered this in him.

She's never seen him like this before, this volatile, this unbalanced, this unlike himself and she wants to help but she doesn't know how.

She stops where she is and even retreats a step or two, letting him back himself into a corner, his head hung, his skin chalk white, his eyes wide and distant, focussed on something beyond her, beyond any of this, and infinitely more terrifying than she could begin to imagine here.

"Bruce?" She murmurs uncertainly.

When he raises his eyes to hers again he looks stricken and tormented. He finally managed to find his voice again, hoarse and strained, "I thought you were dead, Natasha." He whispers, his words almost lost in the shaky crack that splinters them, "I thought- I thought..."

She stares at him, lost, not understanding. Anything she had considered, anything she might have imagined to come from him by way of explanation had been nothing like this at all and it leaves her stranded and more confused than she had been before.

She moves in closer to him again, driven by the same uncontrollable instinct as before, wanting to comfort him somehow, "I'm here." She breathes, reaching out and tentatively capturing his hand in hers, squeezing it lightly to further her point, "I'm here with you." She murmurs softly, "I'm fine. I'm _fine_ Bruce, I-" She breaks off when he looks up again tortured and hollowed as though a fire has burned through everything he had and everything he was and left nothing but ashes for him to choke upon where once he had been.

She doesn't understand, doesn't understand what he's trying to tell her, doesn't understand he needs her too. And he doesn't know how to make her but she has to, she _has_ to. And he's come too far to turn back now.

He takes several shallow breaths and tries to clear his head then looks up at her, "What did you see?" He asks her, his voice deathly quiet, "What did she make you see when she got inside your head?"

Something tightens in her face at his words, a shadow darkens her eyes but he holds them, hating himself but needing her to know. She swallows then answers, her voice slightly hoarser than usual, but still steady, "The red Room." She breathes, "My Graduation Ceremony." Her words are bitter and twisted and there's steel in the gaze he meets.

He nods then murmurs tautly, "I saw you." He sees the flicker of uncertainty and confusion in her but she gives him his time and lets him try and explain without interruption, "I saw a city on fire. I saw a city of ash and ruin and death. I saw people screaming, bleeding, dying. So I tried to help. But the more I tried the worse it got until I realised...I realised that it was me. I had done it all; I had destroyed it all."

He pauses, struggling with himself, loathe to put what he had seen next into words, to say it out loud, to see it again as he does so. But he goes on, shakily, haltingly, barely coherent, but he goes on.

"And at the centre of it all was...Was you..." His breathing is heavy and laboured by now but he forces himself to keep going, to get through it, "The lullaby-" His voice breaks and he curls his hands into fists, "You had tried to bring me back, like always, but it hadn't worked, it hadn't, I had-"

He sees comprehension dawn, stark and terrible, across her face, her reaction too slowly stifled to be hidden, but he barely registers it as he stumbles blindly on, needing to get it all over, needing it to be over, "That's what I saw...That's what she made me see." He chokes out to her, "You were gone, you were gone and it was my fault, it was all my fault, it was me."

She shakes her head, her vision blurring as she watches him shatter. He's buried his face in his hands, his body shaking violently as he struggles for breath, his chest heaving with the effort it's demanding.

Her hands rests tenderly, tentatively on his arm, hoping he doesn't pull away from her, knowing neither of them will be able to stand it if he does.

He doesn't. But he can't bring himself to look at her either.

Her mind has gone blank. The words that might have soothed or comforted him have slipped from her like smoke through her grasping fingers. But somehow he finds words of his own to fill the tortured silence, his nightmare as yet still unfinished, "When I...Came back to myself again afterwards..." Every muscle in his body feels so taut and tense beneath her touch that she's sure he's in pain even as he swallows it back and says, "You weren't there...It wasn't you that brought me back. They wouldn't tell me what had happened, what I'd done but I, I..." His voice becomes so low that had they not been so close in so much quiet she might have missed his next words, "The last thing I remembered was chaos and destruction...Of my making. And it wasn't you there with me and I thought...I thought that it was real, I thought that you- I thought that _I_ -"

He breaks off again, overcome, but she's heard enough. Thought never really enters into it, instinct drives her when she leans forward and puts her arms around him, embracing him. He tenses at first but she nestles in gently against him and at some point she feels him relent, the walls he'd shrouded himself in suddenly dust in the wake of her comfort and her touch.

After a moment or two she feels his arms rise tentatively from his sides and wrap delicately around her waist, enveloping her in himself. She rests her head against his chest, nuzzling gently into him and he finds himself relaxing, in spite of everything, in spite of himself.

He lets his head settle on top of hers and inhales deeply. She smells of cherries, sweet and fragrant and beneath that scent is something richer and warmer; something achingly familiar and intimately comforting, something he could only ever define as _her._

It settles him somehow, overcomes the turmoil and torment that rages inside him, like the first rays of sun breaking through the blackened, heavy thunderclouds to begin to tame and gentle the storm battering endlessly against the world.

She still looks, and feels, a little shaken by his revelation when she raises her eyes to look at him again her gaze is steady and unflinching. Her hand reaches up and gently cups his cheek, her thumb lightly, absently strokes back and forth. She doesn't pull away, she doesn't shrink back or withdraw.

She trusts him. And her trust leaves no room for the misplaced fear that came from doubts and misunderstanding she no longer has. She knows him, every bit of him, with an intimacy they were both wary of at the beginning but that they've come to appreciate and rely on.

Theirs is a more personal connection. With others she might share a training regime or a fighting technique, a cover, a convenience. With him she shares her secrets, her soul. To them she is a shadow, a vague memory half-forgotten before it's ever been remembered, a skin that's shed before she ever manages to feel comfortable in it.

To him she is her. She's just her; never anything more or anything less than that, than who she is, than who she can be with him. And that's all he ever is with her; himself. He's bared his truth for her to see and what he expects and what she gives in return is the same.

She gathers and marshals herself and takes a deep breath, making sure to find his eyes before she says softly, "You would never...You _could_ never do that," She corrects him firmly, " _Never._ Not to me."

His jaw tightens at that and she feels something tremble through him as he murmurs quietly, "And you're sure about that, are you?"

She takes her time to respond, making sure she doesn't rush and stumble into blind, false certainty that will only unsettle him more than he already is, "Yes." She begins simply. He flinches away from the simple word as though it burns him but she holds firm and goes on, " _Yes._ " She repeats, a stronger kick in her tone this time that catches his attention and draws his eyes to her once more, "Yes." She says a third time, her voice softer, tempered by another tender touch, "I trust you Bruce. And I trust him too, even if you don't, even if you can't, yet." She pauses a beat, weighing and judging his responses to her words then, "And you...Do you trust me?"

His eyes seem to search hers for a moment then he nods, "Yes." He breathes faintly.

"Then trust me." She murmurs fiercely, one hand wrapping around the open hem of his shirt and pulling him in closer as she says, "I don't need you to protect me, Bruce. Not from you."

His eyes darken and lower for a moment before he manages to say, "I know, I know that, I just, I don't want , I can't have any more blood on my hands, not, especially not yours, I-"

"I know." She whispers, her voice a little higher and hoarser than usual, "I understand better than anyone." A hollow, dead humourless laugh bursts from her then and she has to swallow hard to get her next words out, "I have more blood on me than I have skin to stain. You'd think, by then, that one more drop wouldn't matter, not to a monster, but it does. We both know that."

He hesitates a moment then he murmurs her name, "Natasha."

"No." She interrupts, fire flaring in her eyes, sparking and catching in her words, "I know. I know what you've done. I know all of it...And I need you to know that I care about you. I care about you and nothing in your past changes that. Because I know you too." She tells him quietly. And he listens, silent and attentive, drinking in her words like a drowning man would gulp down his first gasp of air.

"I know you, Bruce." She murmurs, so close now that her scent fills his lungs again and her breath feels hot against his cheek.

There's no fear in her gaze, no doubt, no concern, only fire and steel. She's sure about this, about him, surer than he is if truth be told. But there's something in her that steadies him and grounds him. And he trusts her. If he knows nothing else about this; about them, he knows that he trusts her.

"I know you." She repeats again, more tenderly, more intimately than before, her fingertips lightly brushing his cheek, "I know what you're afraid of with me, with this. I know what you're capable of...and what you're not." She steps in a little, her body nudging gently against him as she does so, causing shivers to tremble through him where they touch, like static sparking between two live wires.

Her eyes are over bright, deep, limitless, the endless possibility of future twined together with a haunted, broken darkness from a past that she should never have known that pulls him in and strips him back to a bare and kindred soul without doubts or fears or insecurities, every time he's careless enough to let himself get lost in them.

He finds his hand raising, almost of its own accord, to gently wrap around hers again as she continues, "I know that you still think that you need to run, to hide, to isolate yourself again and I know that you still think that you need to do that alone, without me..."

He shakes his head, pulling back only a little but enough, "It's not that simple, Natasha, I just don't, I want-"

"I know." She interrupts quietly, that look in her eye tells him that she does, and more, she understands. "I know what you want; what you want to avoid..."She pauses a moment, her eyes lowering for a heartbeat before they find his again and she says with a new strength and a flare of defiance in her voice, "But I know what I want, Bruce...I know what I want."

His expression now is hard to read. He's always been that way with her. He's gotten good at hiding, at disappearing inside himself, mastering himself, withdrawing and shutting out the world, not letting anyone know him, not letting anyone close enough to try.

Until her. He opened himself up to her on the unspoken condition that she do the same. And she had. Without ever really noticing it at first. He was easy to talk to, good at listening, with enough empathy stirred to know how to comfort her if she needed it and to open her up further when she was ready.

He was gentle and safe, despite what he believed, and she felt something with him; a connection that had bridged them in the long hours they had spent together after the sun had sunk and the base dreamed around them. They had talked and listened and bonded.

Without ever meaning to, she had gotten close to him. And he trusted her too, she had realised. Not because she wanted him too but because he did. And she realised that he simply trusted _her._ Not a cover, not a mask, not a puppet she had shaped just for him; to lure him in and make him fall for her, not an agent, just her, just Natasha.

And she trusted him too. This man she had tentatively come to know, not because she'd come to know, not because she'd been ordered to, not because he was a target or a mission, but because he wasn't. Because he was unlike anyone else she had ever met or come to know, because he had intrigued her, because she had been drawn to him, because she had wanted to.

He had been a choice that she had made then when she had approached him late that night, late when she couldn't sleep and found that he couldn't either, and they had gotten around to talking. Not about their shared insomnia about something else, about a hundred different something else's that she couldn't remember any more but that didn't seem to matter. They had sat together for hours, he had made her smile, he had made her laugh, he had made her sombre and serious and silent, he had coaxed stories from her, some true, some mostly true; and she had done the same with him and when the sun rose, neither of them was tired still, but they were calm, settled, at peace.

She had been happy then. It had taken her so long afterwards to realise that one simple truth. But she had been happy. No strings attached, no clauses, no conditions, no lies, no chance that it would all crumble to dust and slip away whenever she got that next call and had to burn that next cover. He just made her happy.

He had been a choice that she had made when they began to work with the big guy too, on the lullaby technique they've come to rely on in the field. They had created that together. With a lot of hours of blood, sweat and tears. But they had done it. They had tamed the Hulk, made him fight for them, made him fight with him, made him trust her enough to surrender Bruce back to her when they were done, ensuring that she would take over and look after him then.

He was a choice that she was making now, because she wants him.

She watches him closely as she softly tucks a strand of her still damp hair behind her ear. The smile that ghosts across his lips is sad, "We don't every time get what we want, Natasha." He reminds her faintly.

"Not every time." She agrees, her voice as low and quiet as his now that they're so close, "But sometimes." She insists steadily, meeting his eyes again, "Sometimes is enough for me." She murmurs, "You're enough." She presses on, "More than enough." She whispers, "More than I could ever have expected or thought of or hoped for." She moves in a little closer, letting their bodies kiss briefly against each other, "I want you." She breathes tenderly, intimately, certainly.

She means it. He knows she does. He can see it in her eyes, hear it in her tone; sense it in every fibre of her being, just as he feels it in his own.

Because he wants this too. And he wants her too. He wants everything she has, everything she is, everything she was, everything she could be; everything that _they_ could be together. Happy and whole and one. He wants that. He wants that more than he could ever tell her, more than he could ever dare to let himself appreciate. But he wants her. Of that he's sure, of that he'll always be sure, whatever happens, whatever they go through, whatever changes that will always stay the same, he knows that, he'd swear that with his last breath and know that with his last thought, always.

He takes a long time, weighing his words, softening somewhat but still wanting to be sure, "I want you to be happy." He begins slowly, his hands skimming slowly up and down her arms, barely letting them come into contact, as though he fears even his lightest touch will bruise her, "I want you to be safe." He goes on steadily, "I want you to be able to stop fighting." He breathes with a faint, tender smile, watching her eyes to make sure the full impact and meaning behind that impresses itself upon her, and he knows it does, knows she understands, even as he clarifies, "Because you've fought enough. More than enough now. Because there comes a time when you need to be able to hang up your gun and never lift it again."

Her palms brace flat against his chest and she feels his next words vibrate and hum through her as he says them, "I want you to be able to stop sacrificing yourself, your future, to appease your past; to settle a debt that you've paid a hundred times over." His words hit her, hit her so hard it's like he knows, like he's felt everything she has, heard and seen every whisper of thought and stolen dream that's ever etched itself upon her soul.

Her breath has stilled and halted in her lungs as she waits, knowing he has more to say, "I want you to be able to stop hiding behind covers and masks and shallow identities just so you won't die. I want you to be able to be _you_." He goes on, his voice a little stronger now, "I want you to be free, I want, after all this time, after everything you've seen and done, I want you to be able to _live_ at last."

She moves in a little closer, her fingers curling around the front of his shirt and clinging on tight, "And what about you?"She murmurs softly, her throat dry, "What do you want for you?"

He considers for a long time before he answers her and when he does it's slow and hesitant in coming, "I want...I want to be able to run with it...With you."

A warm, even smile spreads slowly across her face and she reaches up to tenderly caress his cheek before she says lightly, "I'm working on those first parts, I promise..." She pauses a moment, looking up at him once more, that way she does that makes him lose himself in her whatever the circumstances and whatever his better judgement tells him. She presses in against him and he feels himself shift in against her in response as she breathes lightly, "But that last bit? That's easy."

"It is?" He whispers hoarsely, desperate to believe her but not sure if he can.

"You said you trusted me." She reminds him quietly.

"I did." He murmurs back, stumbling slightly, lost in her, in this moment he's somehow slipped in to with her, "I did, I do."

She smiles again, her eyes still holding, still transfixing his, "Then trust me."

She moves in to him, her movements supple and easy, her body fitting almost too well against his, as though it's supposed to, as though they've been made that way; two fractured halves of something that was once whole.

His hand, on some impulsive instinct, finds the curve of her waist and holds her close to him.

"Good." She murmurs, her breath fluttering hot against his skin, "Now. Close your eyes." He does so. "Take a deep breath." She shifts slightly against him as his chest expands between them, "And just...Run with it." She whispers finally.

He leans down to her and kisses her. Slowly at first, his lips barely brushing hers, then little harder, a little deeper, a little more and a little more and a little more until he forgets where they are and what's happened and every reason he ever had for not doing this. None of them seem to matter anymore. All that matters is her. All that exists, all that feels real, all that makes him feel anything at all is her.

His lips are soft and tender, cautious and careful, as though afraid to give himself entirely to her; or else to take everything she has to give him in turn, she could never be quite sure. A moment later it doesn't seem to matter. He finds some certainty, some confidence from their embrace and deepens it, his hand presses a little harder on her waist and cradles her more tightly against him.

She responds to him, raising one hand and running it slowly through his hair, letting it catch slightly in the damp curls and come to rest just behind his head, shaping his movements a little more.

She parts her lips for his tongue, both invitation and acceptance and feels a shiver tremor through her when he answers that. He tastes sweet and safe and achingly familiar yet unknown all at once. Something she wants, something she's wanted for so long that's been denied her, that's been denied them both, that she indulges and drowns in as fully as she can now.

Their timing leaves a little to be desired. The world is falling apart around them the team is shaken, cracked, failing. But for once she doesn't think that, she doesn't care about that, for this one instant, this one moment here with him it ceases to matter. She doesn't have to be an agent, she doesn't have to be an Avenger, she doesn't have to be the assassin that they twisted her into being, to save or to harm, she just has to be, she just _feels_ like herself.

He stops everything else, just for a little while. The rest fades, the covers, the masks, the secrets and lies that kept her alive and dead at the same time for so long crumble away. He lets her be her. He lets her be free. She doesn't have to hide with him. She never has. She never will. He knows her, understands her, wants her and cares about her for all of that.

He offers something she never thought she'd have. A chance. An understanding. A future. All wrapped and sealed in a single kiss.

They draw gently and reluctantly apart and his eyes open again to find hers already alive and dancing before him, a smile on her lips. He presses his forehead against hers and slips his fingers through hers.

"See." She says lightly, "Easy."

Hs breath huffs out of him in amusement. _If only..._

He gently kisses her forehead and she wraps her arms around him, cuddling against him, feeling almost small in his arms.

"Can we stay here?" She mumbles quietly into his shirt, "Just a little longer. Just you and me?"

"Of course." He murmurs and she smiles faintly and burrows against him, her head on his chest. He rests his chin on top of it and closes his eyes, inhaling the delicate cherry scent of her hair again.

He wishes she was easier to turn away, wishes he wasn't as hard to live; wishes she wasn't as easy. He wants her. He shouldn't, he can't, but he does. And they could have something, maybe. If it wasn't like this, if things were different, if he didn't have to leave, if, if, if...

If they existed in some other time, some other life. Then maybe they could stay. Maybe it could just be him and her and them. Maybe they could be happy. Maybe they could be together, maybe they could work, maybe he could but. But they can't. And he can't.

Nothing lasts forever...


End file.
